Forget the spin. This is a disastrous budget for families.
It steals from our children and grandchildren who are bequeathed debt growing to $1.25 trillion over the forward estimates.
There's no hope of returning to where Peter Costello left us 20 years ago.
Last night's budget unveiled an eye watering $77 billion in net tax increases.
If it was a responsible budget taxes would be going down, not sending the cost of government up.
Budget deficits of $20 to $30 billion continue over the forward estimates.
This is not a budget in "good nick", to use Jim Chalmers' favourite phrase.
Nothing fuels wealth-sapping inflation more than government spending which continues out of control having risen 40pc of GDP over the past 10 years.
Inflation-driven interest rates rises are costing the average mortgage holder $27,000 per year.
Big government spending is the fault of both major parties, Jim Chalmers is just building on the post-Covid mess the Coalition left.
The workers' offset hand-out starting in 2027 is $5 per week, less than the price of a small double shot flat white.
Borrowed money as cost-of-living relief is not relief. It's like paying your kids' pocket money on the credit card when it is already maxed out.
Bracket creep from PAYG taxpayers is the government's fasted growing source of revenue.
Labor cares not for the workers.
But it is not just the nation's finances that are trashed.
When the estimation of politicians is at rock bottom, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers brazenly break election promises on negative gearing, capital gains tax and family trusts.
Why should we ever believe anything they say again?
Speaking of broken promises, electricity prices coming down by $275? Forget it.
A government that can't control spending wants to raise more money by taxing what little wealth people have.
Most people who have investment properties are not wealthy – most have just one, not five as is the caricature of the politics of envy stoked by Labor.
They are doing what little they can to get ahead and lessen their reliance on the welfare system in retirement.
At least negative gearing, which is simply offsetting property expenses against tax like any other business, and the capital gains tax discount will still apply to new builds.
But CGT increases are not about intergeneration equity, as the government would have us believe.
All that does is deny young people the opportunity and incentive to acquire modest wealth that their parents could.
It locks kids out of aspiration.
This is the class warfare Bill Shorten took to the 2019 election and had rejected.
What is the answer?
Families need tax relief through income splitting that lowers family tax and allows mums and dads the flexibility to stay at home and care for young children.
This was ruled out by the anti-family Finance Minister Katy Gallagher this week.
Taxing family trusts removes the only vestige of income splitting left.
Australia has wealth for toil but it is tied up in government red, green and black tape.
The way out is for government to live within its means and unlock the comparative advantage our nation has in cheap fossil fuel energy to power industry.
But that would require both vision and hard decisions.
Our political class is incapable of both.
